Patent GB-914017-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to coin handling machines
Inventor: WHITE ROBY BYRON
IPC: G07D5/10
Filed: 1960-08-10
Abstract: 914,017. Sorting and testing coins. ELECTRONIC COIN PROCESSING CORPORATION. Aug. 10, 1960, No. 27771/60. Class 27. Coin-handling apparatus comprises means for sorting coins into batches according to their sizes and feeding these batches to respective testers which cause a coin to ring at its natural frequency in air and have means responsive to a predetermined frequency band for directing authentic coins to collecting means. The apparatus is described as either set up at a central station to which coins collected from parking meters, vending machines, telephone boxes, &c. are brought or disposed on a vehicle for making the collection. As shown in Fig. 1, the apparatus is mounted on a vehicle and comprises a sorter 6 arranged to distribute the coins according to size to testers 9 . . . 13 leading to compartments 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, for authentic coins and a compartment 22 for rejected or counterfeit coins. The coins may be delivered to a hopper 7 which feeds them by a conveyer 8 to the sorter 6 or they may be pumped directly from the coin box of a parking meter through a hose 40, Fig. 4, having a coin-receiving head 41 attachable to the meter. The hose 40 is connected to a box 42 housing an impeller 43 for inducing a downward flow of air through a perforated pipe 45 connected to the hose so that coins are drawn through the hose and drop down the pipe 45 ; at the outlet end of the pipe 45, a vaned valve 49 is rotated slowly by a motor 51 to discharge the coins through a shoot to the sorter. A closure device fitted within a casing 56 between the hose and head 41 allows free passage of the coins as long as the hose is fitted to the meter but closes to prevent coins from being extracted from that end of the hose should the latter be inverted after it has been detached. The sorter to which the coins are then fed comprises an assembly of concentric and perforated drums 70, 71, 72, 73, Fig. 7, which are arranged at a slight downward inclination and, together with an enclosing imperforate drum 74, are secured at one end for rotation by a motor 77. Coins fed through a shoot 79 into the upper end of the innermost drum are sorted by the various drums and discharged through shoots 82, 86, 87, 88, 89 at their lower ends, the perforations in the various drums being of such sizes that the innermost drum retains all but the large size coins for which it is effective and passes the rest to the next drum which similarly retains the coins of the next size and passes the remainder to the next drum, and so on; small perforations may be provided in the outer drum 74 for the passage of small inwanted coins. The drums may be cylindrical or of polygonal cross-section with the perforations disposed at the corners, or, as shown in Fig. 16, of saw-tooth cross-section and provided, if desired, with transverse braking ribs 101. On a vehicle, the drums are mounted in a pivoted and weighted cage to ensure that they always adopt a slight downward inclination. Each of the shoots from the sorter leads to a separate tester comprising a hopper 120, Fig. 18, the base 123 of which is rotated about its axis by a motor 125 so that the coins are flung radially outward and directed out of the hopper one at a time through a guide passage 129, Fig. 20. Should two coins stacked one on the other attempt to enter the passage together, the upper coin is deflected past the entrance by its engagement with the rim of a second disc 128 -which projects into the passage in spaced relation above the base 123 and is rotated by the motor 125 at a much greater speed than is the base. As it leaves the passage 129, the coin is picked up between an upper pair of driven belts 148 passing over pulleys 142 and a lower pair of pulleys 150 and fed thereby to the upper end of a vertical shoot 161 where it is centred between a fast-moving belt 153 and a driven roller 164 and projected down the shoot at considerable speed; to enable the belt 148 to cope with both thick and thin coins, the beltengaging surfaces of the pulleys 142 are irregularly formed so that the spacing of the belt from the base 123 constantly varies and, should two coins overlap each other on the pulleys 150, the fast-moving belt 153 ensures that the leading coin will be accelerated down the shoot well in advance of the other coin. When the coin leaves the shoot 161, its edge is arranged to strike against an anvil 171; as shown in Figs. 19b . . . 19d, the coin 173 successively hits a flexible insert 172 embedded in the anvil, flips over to cause its edge to strike the anvil and so ring at its natural resonant frequency while suspended in free air, and then spins back in reverse direction. The ringing sound so produced is received by a microphone 177, Fig. 20, and fed to a valve circuit which is designed to respond only to sounds falling within a predetermined frequency range (i.e. the range corresponding to the particular coins for which the tester is employed). An authentic coin causes the circuit briefly to operate a relay resulting in the energization of a solenoid 179, Fig. 18, the plunger of which then advances to hit the coin as it spins back from the anvil and direct it into a shoot 178 ; a coin which fails to energize the solenoid merely bounces off the anvil into a reject shoot 186. The operation of the relay also actuates counters to register the number of authentic coins collected from each source and the total number collected from all sources and may control apparatus for registering these amounts on punched cards. The outlet from each compartment receiving authenticated and rejected coins from the testers is fitted with a cylindrical valve block which has a diametric opening and is rotatable to register the opening with the outlet through gearing from a manually-operable shaft. Separate opening shafts may be provided for the different compartments or one shaft common to all the compartments, and the operating handle of the shaft projects into a locked compartment. Coins collected by a vehicle may be discharged at a central station through an opening in the floor of the latter after a telescoping shoot has been raised hydraulically or otherwise through the floor into contact with the valve. Either disposed on the vehicle or permanently installed at a fixed location is a further device for detecting abnormalities in the diameter and thickness of coins which have been previously authenticated. In this device, coins are fed one at a time from a stack in a cylinder to openings 254, Fig. 35, in the upper run of an endless belt 251 moving over a support 250. Variations in diameter detected by the tip of a spring-pressed finger 258 result in the opposite end of the finger closing one of two contacts 266, 267. Similarly, variations in thickness detected by the tips 273 of a number of spring- urged fingers 271 result in the opposite ends of the fingers closing one of two contacts 277, 278. Closing of any of the contacts 266, 267, 277, 278 energizes relays in a control circuit and the activation of a solenoid 288 to slide an ejector plate 285 transversely below the belt so that the defective coin drops from its opening 254 into an opening 287 in the plate 285 and is withdrawn with the latter when the solenoid is de-energized. The control circuit also automatically registers the number of coins rejected. For use in a bank, the apparatus may be arranged to test and count only one denomination of coin which has been sorted from a batch fed to the sorter.